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1666. Otus bakkamoena bakkamoena

(1666) Otus bakkamoena bakkamoena Pennant.
THE CEYLON COLLARED SCOPS OWL.
Otus bakkamoena bakkamoena, Fauna B. I., Birds, 2nd ed. vol. iv, p. 422.
The Ceylon Collared Scops Owl is found in Ceylon and in Southern India as far North as the South Kokan and Madras.
All the various races of this Scops Owl are birds which frequent well-wooded country in the plains but do not enter dense round forest. They prefer orchards, clumps and avenues of trees round about villages and cultivation and, according to bourdillon, in Travancore are very common in gardens. In the Nilgiris and hills of Southern India it occurs as high as 4,000 feet in the breeding season, but in Travancore Bourdillon says that it is most common in the plains and foot-hills, and it has only been recorded up to some 2,000 feet. In Ceylon it is found as high as 5,000 feet. No race of Collared Scops Owl, even deserticolor, will be found in truly desert country, as they all require a good water-supply and trees with dense foliage in which to hide.
Bourdillon records that in Travancore this little Owl often breeds in the roofs of houses, both empty and deserted, or in holes in walls of old buildings, but elsewhere they seem always to lay their egga in natural hollows in trees. A very favourite situation in Ceylon and the Indian Tea and Rubber districts is a hole in a tree on the edge of the plantations.
Legge found a nest "placed in the hollow between the frond and the trunk of a Kitool palm (Caryota urens),” and he adds, “a few leaves or grass-stalks usually line the hole in which the egga are deposited.” I have no other record of any real lining being made. All the eggs Phillips found were deposited on the bare wood, which was in some instances quite rotten and crumbled. Vidal also says of the six nests found by him ; “None of the nests contained any lining but rotten touch-wood.” All these six nests were in holes in Mango-trees or Jack-trees, and they were all taken in the Ratnagiri district.
The birds select holes in trees which are as a rule low down, anything between 6 and 20 feet, hut occasionally they choose one very high up.
The breeding season is principally January and February but in Ceylon, Phillips obtained several nests in March and April. Davidson also took one clutch in the Konkan on the 10th April, while, on the other hand, odd clutches have been taken in December.
The usual full clutch is two or three, and Vidal found three to be the maximum number in Ratnagiri, but in Travancore Bourdillon obtained clutches of four and five eggs.
The eggs are quite typical Owls’ eggs in every way, often extremely broad ovals, almost spherical.
Twenty-seven eggs average 31.8 x 27.0 mm. : maxima 85.0 x 28.2 and 33.0 x 29.2 mm. ; minima 29.1 x 25.5 and 30.5 x 25.3 mm.

BookTitle:

The Nidification Of Birds Of The Indian Empire

Reference:

Baker, Edward Charles Stuart. The nidification of birds of the Indian Empire. Vol. 3. 1934.